The Jupiter take-off from Cape Canaveral last week was routine. The fat, 60-ft. IRBM rose from its pad, climbed through thin clouds, curved toward the southeast and vanished among the stars. No one was surprised; of the 20 Army Jupiters fired so far, only one has failed.
But in the roomy nose cone rode an extraordinary cargo: two young female monkeys, Able and Baker.* Monkey Able, a greyish, 6-lb. rhesus, was a graduate of a school at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Washington. D.C., where she and her classmates were taught to press...
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